Incorporating Writing Issue Vol 3

incorporating writing
Issue 6 Vol 3 AGE
Michelle Sank - Katya Shipster - Tom Chivers
Incorporating Writing
(ISSN 1743-0380)
Contents
Editorial Why one is the magic number
Andrew Oldham goes to task.
Editorial Team
Managing Editor/Columns Andrew Oldham Deputy Editor/Interviews G.P. Kennedy Articles Editor Valeria Kogan Reviews Editor Janet Aspey Arts Editor Sara-Jayne Parsons Sales & Marketing Team marketing@incorporatingwriting.co.uk Columnists Christine Brandel, Sofie Fowler Contributors Tom Chivers, Caroline Drennan, Ben Felsenburg, Rhodri Mogford, Clare Reddaway, Rebecca Richards, Faith Roswell. Cover Art Michelle Sank, Wondrous 8 (detail) Design Incorporating Writing Contact Details http://www.incorporatingwriting.co.uk editor@incorporatingwriting.co.uk
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Interviews Katya Shipster
G.P.Kennedy behind the aging face of publishing reveals something new.
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James Methven Articles Skateboarding
Rhodri Mogford goes behind academia.
Tom Chivers shares his secret.
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Coming of Age
Faith Roswell tackles the biggie. North.
The Internet Indentity Crisis

Article by Rebecca Richards.
Columns Notes from America
Christine Brandel from stateside tels us why aging changes with a single word.
Dawning of the age of... Writing with Light Michelle Sank

Sara-Jayne Parson shows us examples of Sanks work.
Sofie Fowler tackles the wider world of aging.
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Incorporating Writing is an imprint of The Incwriters Society (UK). The magazine is managed by an editorial team independent of The Societys Constitution. Nothing in this magazine may be reproduced in whole or part without permission of the publishers. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, reproduction of articles, photographs or content. Incorporating Writing has endeavoured to ensure that all information inside the magazine is correct, however prices and details are subject to change. Individual contributors indemnify Incorporating Writing, The Incwriters Society (UK) against copyright claims, monetary claims, tax payments / NI contributions, or any other claims. This magazine is produced in the UK. The Incwriters Society (UK) 2005-2009
Reviews
Janet Aspey introduces new books from publishers.
News and Opportunities
Editorial by Andrew Oldham
Oh Bollocks!
There comes an age when you come to realise that all those things you wanted to do when you were a child are no longer possible. In melancholic moments fuelled by beer and smokeless pubs, you rant and reminisce with your friends, strangers and drunks about your childhood. I had a dream! The rant often ends in tears or hugging the rim of a toilet. Some days it ends in both. The fact is that its all bollocks. The past. It isnt how you remember it. I will concede that mini milk ice creams did taste better in the seventies, even though today they still hold on to their obscene look, if somewhat smaller and more flacid in taste. Kia Ora could give you a sugar rush that would have scared the shit out of a murder of crows and would have left them with nothing to sing about. It was safe to say that the overlap into next decade, the 80s, give
us the culinary highs of soda stream and Mr Frost, both of which broke when you got your hands on it and jammed your Action Man or Barbie into the workings. I can count on one hand how many times I played an evil Bond villain with my Mr Frost and my Action Man. Once. I broke both and they never got replaced. In those decades, parents would point out that these new fads cost money. Money! I think thats why at the age of seven I sat down and wrote the following list of what I wanted to do when I grew up: (1) Have thick head of hair like Kevin Keegan, (2) Jump like Evel Knievel, (3) Get a Mr Frost, (4) Tell my Mum and Dad off, (5) Drive a steam train, (6) Fly a rocket ship, (7) Tie my sister to a lamppost, and; (8) Get new Action Man. Its not much of a list but then again I wasnt much of a kid. Individual is what my Mum would have called it. Tapped is what the neighbours said. Either way it
4 4 was hot, noisy and back breaking. I was fifteen, part of a model railway club and dateless. Likewise, the same would happen in a rocket. I suffer from vertigo and panic climbing the stairs. It would not be a good idea for me to pilot a rocket ship. Fact is, there arent any and Im not Dan Dare. Im more like Stan There, with his sidekick, Shu Tup. The only reason I wanted to tie my sister to a lamppost is that my sister would often take me out for the day and tie me to one. This has not led to any kind of kinkyness in later life but has left me with several rope burns. I did get my own back on my sister, I became a teenager. That also scratches number four off my list. How can you tell your parents off when theyve had to put up with you wearing bad clothes, makeup, listening to bad music at full blast and grunting for six years? Growing up is something we all pretend to go through but the truth is, we never do. If you want proof, next time youre up to no good, stop and consider this, do you at anytime think: Im going to get caught?. If so, is your next thought: God knows what my mum/dad/husband/ wife* will think? (*delete as appropriate depending on who youre really scared of). If this is the case, welcome to my world, its full of kids and were all still scrawling out our wish lists and when we have to pretend to be adults we still approach it with our usual tact. We look the world in the eye and mutter, Oh Bolllocks!
does show that our memories do play tricks on us. If this list is anything to go by being young wasnt that much fun.
It would not be good for me to pilot a rocket ship. Fact is, there arent any and Im not Dan Dare. Im more like Stan There, with his sidekick, Shu Tup
The list shows the great lie of our childhood. That childhood dreams were often useless. I wanted hair like Kevin Keegan! Yet, I have and always will be useless at football. When teams were picked at school, I wasnt just the last kid to be picked I was often raffled off. That aside, I did grow my hair long as a teenager and looked more like an afghan dog than a footballer. At the age of ten I jump a car like Evel Knievel. The car was a reliant robin and the jump was actually a crash. For bikes hold a mystery for me, how to stay on them. I have no sense of balance. This has meant that I have never managed to ride a bike successfully. I had a chopper, I had several raleighs and even a BMX. All had more stabilisers than a rocket. My Dad cycled for county and he would watch me peddle off from behind a reinforced privet hedge. I did jump that but had meant to brake. Often after I fell off the same bike would carry on without me. In fact my last bike is somewhere out there living a free range life. I did get a Mr Frost and a new Action Man only last Christmas and then watched the new James Bond on Boxing Day. They are both broken beyond repair and my wife has banned me from the kitchen. I have driven a steam train, it
Andrew Oldham is the Managing Editor/Columns for Incorporating Writing. He is an award winning writer and academic.
A Writers Secret Passion Skateboarding

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Short Article by Tom Chivers
I would spend vast tracts of time wandering around the city to discover hidden rails, disused parking lots, alleyways, the perfect ledge
Even now, the growl of polyurethane wheels on tarmac sets my heart racing. The hiss of bearings. The crack and tap of polished Maple on concrete. And then: the strange, hoped-for silence of flight. Its six years since I last stepped onto the familiar gritty sandpaper deck of a skateboard, but throughout my teens it was my less-than private passion. Entire weekends spent sessioning local spots in South London; hanging out at Stockwells salmon-tinged concrete skatepark; or careering through the City on illicit roadtrips all this seems another world away. From the age of 14, when a school friend persuaded me to buy my first skateboard from Slam City Skates, Covent Garden, until the end of my teens, when university and repeated injury to my right ankle combined to draw my interest elsewhere, I was a skateboarder. Fully paid-up member of an elusive tribe recognisable not by their clothing (thats called fashion), but by the tears and scuffs on their shoes. I was part of a community a crosscultural, world-wide gang. From ten year-olds with boards from Woolworths to old-school skaters in their thirties with respectable jobs (I remember people skating in suits after work at the South Bank). Skateboarding is the ultimate urban excursion. I would spend vast tracts of time wandering around the city to discover hidden rails, disused parking lots, alleyways, the perfect ledge. Rumours and hearsay were followed up. I once tramped around Norwood for an entire day searching for a decaying ramp that never existed. Regular trips by bus, rail and tube to Blackfriars, Camberwell, Docklands, Croydon and the giant skatepark under the Westway at Ladbroke Grove. In advance of family holidays, hang-outs of foreign cities would be swiftly researched. My
vocabulary filled up with esoteric terminology and outlandish DIY brand names: switch pop shuv-its, nollie flips, Spitfire and Blueprint, coping, planters and 411. I learnt an alternative history of street-play, memorised the names of skateboarding pioneers: Alan Gelfand who invented the ollie; Rodney Mullins, spinning interminably to a soundtrack of The Doors People Are Strange; Tom Penny, the Oxfordshire wonderkid who broke America and then disappeared to rural France. Skateboarding gave me a healthy distrust for authority: rentacops and tetchy caretakers were our natural enemies. The worst were the City of London Police, who enforced a spurious ban inside the Square Mile with bullish disdain. And it taught me how to love the city. No-one engages with the urban landscape quite like a skateboarder. It was my adolescent pyschogeography. Even now, I shudder with excitement on passing a gleaming handrail or tripleset. I regularly skateboard in my dreams almost lucid visions - hitting up tube trains, underground car parks, the lot. I was never going to be the next Tony Hawk (I hit my peak pretty early on), but I loved the freedom, the challenge, the creativity, the comradeship. The ethos of skateboarding laid the groundwork for my practice as a writer and it transformed the way I see the city. Tom Chivers is a writer, editor and promoter. His books include How To Build A City (Salt Publishing, 2009), The Terrors (Nine Arches Press) and, as editor, Generation Txt (Penned in the Margins, 2006) and City State: New London Poetry (Penned in the Margins, 2009).
Notes from America: Age

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Column by Christine Brandel
Because Im not old. At best Im just older. Older than I was. And quite frankly, given the apparent time bomb that is my body, I think its quite okay to be forty
As I approach my fortieth birthday, I consider sharing the wisdom Ive gained in my four decades on Earth. However, this could read like a transcribe from Grumpy Old Women, so I wont go there. Instead heres how I discovered I was old. No internal struggle or refusal to accept the inevitable. I found out when someone told me. In fact, when everyone started telling me. The first person to tell me was the man who checked my passport when I arrived in the US last August. He called me maam. Polite society in America dictates that young women are called Miss when harassed by members of the public (Excuse me, Miss, can I interest you in double glazing?) while old women are called Maam (as in Wham bam, thank you, as opposed to the way one addresses the Queen). So a man called me Maam. Not the greatest attack in the world, but it still meant something. In England I had been called many thingsMiss while I was teaching, Love by complete strangers and Duck by my milkman. Those are nice, ageless things to be called. But being called Maam meant one thing. This man did not see me as young; he saw me as old. I tried to bounce back but quickly found this was going to be one hell of a battle. I was offered a senior discount by a sixteen-year-old cinema worker. Then television and radio started in on me. First off, the classic rock station here plays music from the eighties. Suddenly Rick Springfield and Soft Cell are classics? Also, I know Im not the first to mention the deluge of young starlets, warning about the curse of wrinkles and excess pounds that means my age is as good as death, but they are there. Everywhere. However, the real kicker are the medical-based adverts. As I sit here writing, my arteries are clogging, my knees are weakening and my retinas are
deteriorating. Luckily there are a number of pills on the market which can counteract these failings of my physical body, and I should really ask my doctor about them. (Note to self: check to see if elbow has swelled since last measurement.) The scariest one is the heart attack commercial. Womens heart attacks have different symptoms; before a heart attack these include fatigue, indigestion and anxiety. I experience these every time I watch one of these ads. In fact I believe these ads are going to literally cause me to experience a heart attack and am considering a preemptive law suit to ensure I have enough money to fall back on when I am unable to work (fortunately a commercial for a good disability lawyer seems to follow each medical ad). Knowing more about our health is not the problem, I know. But the scare tactics are dangerous and, well, scary and have correlative effects. Such as the panic I experienced when my doctor confirmed that I am old. Which thoughtfully she did twice at the beginning of my fortieth year. As I sat, paper dress clad, listening to her describe procedures, the images of those adverts flashed in my mind. Why didnt I wear sunscreen like that fourteen-year-old model had suggested? Why was I so afraid to try prune juice, natures delicious detoxifier? Why hadnt I had my unsightly receding gums grafted by a friendly periodontist? Alas, it was now too late, and I greeted 2009 with two biopsies within six weeks. The tests were negative. However, she had explicitly said, We should do these because of your age. Never before in my life had someone suggested I might have cancer and then it happened twice in one month. Because of my age. Considering that I am going to keep getting older, I now worry that every symptom I might have will spell doom.
Is this stuffed up nose and sore wrist actually an odd combination of sinus/ joint disease that only affects people my age? So how can I counteract these vicious accusations? Is it by trying to stay hip (note use of the phrase decided not to go there in the opening of this piece) or by keeping up with the latest technology (dont bother following me on Twitter, my updates usually just list upcoming medical tests and sewing pattern purchases). I am on Facebook (though when one of my students found this out, she laughed in the way I once laughed at my mom for using the word awesome and it stung like a bitch). But even Facebook tells me Im old. The bespoke ads which come up are always reminding me that, although Jennifer Aniston and I were born in the same year, she still seems young. Or that I may want to consider learning more skills so that young people dont come steal my job. Or that I can play shuffleboard online. Why are these assumptions being made: is it simply because Ive listed my age (or is it related to my becoming a fan of Excess Baggage)? Whichever it is I dont like it. Because Im not old. At best Im just older. Older than I was. And quite frankly, given the apparent time bomb that is my body, I think its quite okay to be forty. Still, Id prefer to be called Duck. Christine Brandel is a writer and teacher. After finally accepting that, while in England, she would never escape the question Are you American? she was surprised to find that on her recent return to the States, she is being asked Are you British? The answer to both is yes.
Reviews
Age, I pondered this for some time. Should it be about the process of ageing? Or should it be about the age we live in now? With e-books, and blog novels, and television programmes made from blog novels, it didnt feel appropriate not to include this in some way. So I decided I should probably try and include both. What follows is, I hope, an interesting and diverse microcosm for this vast theme. Taking the top spot as Recommended Read for this issue is Mari Strachans debut, The Earth Hums in B Flat. This engaging coming-of-age story is enthusiastically reviewed by Clare Reddaway. Ben Felsenburg casts his analytical eyes over The Bird Room, the debut novel of Chris Killen, an exciting new talent at the forefront of the MySpace generation. Next up is Samantha Harveys Orange Prize Shortlisted title The Wilderness. Caroline Drennan takes a sensitive look at this very moving and powerful portrait of Alzheimers. Great things are predicted for the youngest writer in this section, Eleanor Catton. According to The Observer she is one of the talents to watch this year. Very curious to see if the buzz surrounding her is at all merited, I peruse her debut The Rehearsal with a great deal of interest. Last, but by no means least, Rhodri Mogford has his funny bones tickled by stand-up comedian Ben Moor, in his engagingly witty collection of short stories More Trees to Climb. Enjoy. Janet Aspey is a recent MA Creative Writing graduate with a drama background. She is particularly interested in feminist history and literature, and is currently working on her second novel.
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Featured Review Recommended Read The Earth Hums in B Flat Mari Strachan Canongate, 2009 10.99 ISBN 978 1 84767 304 6 327 pp
in the Rye this is a coming of age novel written in the first person. Such first person narratives, as those books demonstrate so well, stand and fall on how well the character is realised. Gwenni is convincing. She is a child who is described by her mother - when she is being kind, which is not often - as a little odd. Gwenni is imaginative and fanciful. She believes she can fly, she believes that the Toby jugs in the kitchen are alive and overseeing events, she believes that the fox stole around Mrs Llewellyn Pughs neck blinks at her in Chapel and is resurrected. She is well- meaning and clever. She buries herself in detective novels passed on to her by her Aunt Lol, as in her own house books are conspicuous by their absence. When Ifan Evans, a local shepherd, goes missing, she decides that she is a better detective than the town bobby Sergeant Jones and that she can find the missing man. Many books state that their contents will uncover secrets of family life. As Gwenni goes about her investigations and the story unfolds, intimate domestic secrets are indeed uncovered. However, this author handles her material unusually well. All the events, seen through the eyes of the naive child, and counterpointed by her own running thoughts as she misinterprets what is going on, are given an added poignancy
I confess I felt trepidation when this book arrived: the first novel of a sixty year old author. Was this some kind of hobby-writing taken up on the cusp of retirement? The product of an evening class? Well, shame on me for my patronising attitude because this novel makes me wonder what the writer has been doing all of her life apart from cheating us readers of her books. It makes me wonder how many more she is planning to write now, and can she make sure she doesnt spend her retirement doing anything else, please. The Earth Hums in B Flat is the story of Gwenni Morgan, a young girl living in a small Welsh town in the 1950s. In the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mocking Bird and Holden Caulfield in The Catcher
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throughout. What could have been a desperate tale of madness, death and despair, is in fact lyrical and funny, although the undercurrents run dark and deep. I should also add that it is gripping.
Whilst these details add authenticity to the book, one of its great pleasures is the characters. The town is peopled in true Dylan Thomas style with Jones the Butcher and Price the Dentist
As well as having an interesting and compelling narrative, the author has what comes over as an authentic grasp of small town life in Wales in the 1950s. Details are exact the texture of an egg sandwich in a Chapel meeting; ubiquitous false teeth; the scent of Mam drenched in Evening in Paris. The author is also precise about the gradations of class Mam wont let Gwenni collect the chips wrapped up in paper but sends a dish because that Greasy Annie is as common as dirt, and also about aspirations, such as Mams longing for an electric cooker. These details are scattered lightly through the text, making it believable and grounded. The author also grasps at a bigger picture. Far from glamorising the 1950s, she portrays it as a decade full of people still reeling from the trauma of war. Whilst these details add authenticity to the book, one of its great pleasures is the characters. The town is peopled in true Dylan Thomas style with Jones the Butcher and Price the Dentist, who has to have a glass of whisky before he removes teeth, to steady his hand.
There is Alwenna, Gwennis best friend, who has no shame and knows all the gossip from her mother, Nanw Lipstick. There are Aneurin and Edwin, who tease Gwenni and have greased quiffs; Gutor Wern, who is innocent as a child and was dropped on his head as a baby; the minister, known as the Voice Of God. And then there is Mam, monstrous in her cruelty to her daughter. These characters are all well drawn, and again feel real. I think its fair to say that I enjoyed this book. I was charmed by Gwenni Morgan. She could have been cloying and faux naf, but she wasnt. She was fey enough to amuse rather than annoy. And she found herself in the centre of a complex network of relationships that panned out in a most satisfying way. I recommend this novel, and much look forward to Mari Strachens next one.
Clare Reddaway writes scripts for theatre and radio, and stories for children. Her latest audio play, Laying Ghosts, can be downloaded at: www.wirelesstheatre company.co.uk. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University.
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The Bird Room Chris Killen Canongate, 2009 9.99 ISBN: 9781 84767 260 5 202pp
person by Will, who lives with Alice, the woman inside that dress. Hes a sad sack of a man struggling to come to terms with adult life, unable to believe or accept his luck in having found his gorgeous girlfriend. His voice is one long cry of pain, humorously leavened by the fantasy tangents that punctuate his experience: I double-click on Alice in my head. I will double-click on her until she falls in love with me again. Wills days are spent in the pretence of working at home; in fact he does little but nurse jealous thoughts about his girl, and surf the net for porn. Thats not as desultory as it sounds, for he has a purpose to his quest, but one which when we learn it makes him even more pathetic. By stark contrast theres a cooler-thancool friend who is everything he cannot be: also called Will, hes a chicly hot artist whose exhibition gives the novel its title. The show, Fucking Birds, features paintings of budgies and finches to be viewed while listening to an audiotape of hardcore porn grunting. The narrators at once appalled by the way the worlds fallen for this charlatan, but also in awe of and powerless before the super-Wills shamelessness and confidence. The artist licks a drop of tequila off Alices fingertip when theyre first introduced, and the novel charts the playing out of the other Wills fears as an inevitable trajectory that despite
In The Bird Room Chris Killen has penned a slim volume that punches way, way above its weight. His debut novel invites comparison with the darkest humour of early Martin Amis and the unsettling disturbed male psyche of James Lasdun, yet Killens voice, fresh and snappily inventive, is completely his own. Words snap to attention in the constant attack a dress hangs off a womans body as if very bored. The jokes are timed perfectly to draw our attention and maximize our shocked laughs: Helens legs are stinging of piss. Its not her piss. Much of the story is told in the first
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himself he does his utmost to facilitate.
As the quartet of characters collide and interact, we begin to sense the events and revelations that are to come, but Killen has far more important work to do here than deal in the trite currency of surprise twists: by the end a mans very worst nightmare has been realised in an unforgettable scene of a self-made hell
There is also Helen, an acutely selfdeluded single woman with only the slightest tether to the world. Like the Wills she has a doppelganger, but in this case its herself: she has only recently renamed herself, having been called Clair, and at times of stress she also talks to an invisible sister. Helens work life is a pretence too; she calls herself an actress, but lives off the money she gets for doing amateur porn for clients she finds through the net. Her chapters are told through the third person, but Killen lets us know intimately the dreamy thoughts that float around her head so that, just as with sad sack Will, while we can see their faults and fear where those flaws will take them, there is still an unshakable kernel of humanity that means we feel their plight too acutely for our laughs to be wholly comfortable. Set in the noughties world in which texting and the net blur into reality, and pornography is a cipher for insatiable
desires that reduce our objects of desire, and ourselves, to consumer commodities, The Bird Room juggles assorted subjectivities with a consummate certainty that keeps us ever on our toes but never hopelessly confused, for the mechanics of the storyline are as sure and subtle as origami . As the quartet of characters collide and interact, we begin to sense the events and revelations that are to come, but Killen has far more important work to do here than deal in the trite currency of surprise twists: by the end a mans very worst nightmare has been realised in an unforgettable scene of a self-made hell.
Pen for hire Ben Felsenburg is currently covering prime-time TV for a national newspaper and scribbling contemporary dance reviews while busily not writing a novel on death, golf and postcolonial cuisine.
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The Wilderness Samantha Harvey Jonathan Cape, 2009 12.99 ISBN 978 0 224 08968 5 328 pp
But something like leather. He is still lucid enough, however, to consider the names of his son and his wife and what the future might bring, What if he one day forgets them completely? What then? By the end of the book he has gone past this point. A photo of his wife reminds him of somebody he has met. His son is simply a man, everything is unspecific and free-floating. There are few who are going to open a book about Alzheimers with a sense of approaching pleasure. A tinge of fearful curiosity perhaps, or that strange urge that might tempt us onto a gut wrenching, heart stopping fairground ride. Do we really want to witness a once skilled architect experience the revelation that people build things or see an intelligent man grappling with his Jewish origins reduce the six days war of 1967 to Israel does a thing. Egypt? But whatever makes you take up the novel in the first place, Harveys writing quickly draws you in. She has said that she wanted the book to be resonant rather than depressing and, despite moments of extreme poignancy, there is great pleasure in the reading. Her prose can be spare and down-to-earth when required, particularly when describing the day-to-day experience of living with Alzheimers. There are also striking and lingering passages; a sweet but seemingly false memory is dismissed as There is only now. Now! Like a punch in the face and now again. In Jakes moments of confusion, time has
Yesterday, I went upstairs to fetch my glasses; came down with a sweater instead. These things happen from time to time. But at this time I am reading The Wilderness and wince at such gaps of mind. Samantha Harveys novel begins in the cockpit of a biplane. The flight is Jake Jamesons sixtieth birthday present and it is not immediately surprising that there is no sensible order to the images in his head or to the events of the trip. The pilot cannot hear his plea to descend so makes a deeper upward turn. But there is more to it than this. Jake is in the early stages of Alzheimers and cannot remember what the pilots collar is made of, Leather? No, not leather.
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something teenagery about it. Something uncomfortable and maladroit as if it has not yet learnt to pace itself with space. He remembers Joy, with whom he shared a single night of passion, as a surge of yellow in his mind.
This debut novel is so intricate and intriguing that it demands to be read twice. Read it at least once; it was certainly a real contender for this years Orange Prize
The title The Wilderness certainly seems apt for the experience of Alzheimers; chapters are initially numbered but some are randomly named. However, the book is cleverly crafted to convey a sense of pattern and order that is quite naturally balanced with disorder and inextricably linked with Jakes sense of disintegration. What is particularly interesting is the way his confusion gradually creeps up on us. We observe textbook signs of his disease: eggshells in the breadbin, clothes in the oven. When he misinterprets the dates on Joys letters (written over decades) as possible telephone numbers and attempts to call her, we look on with a despairing sympathy. Again, when he meets his daughter Alice at a bus station, we become involved through detail, his irritation at her limping poet partner, his observation of the butterflywing dip of her brows, the reassuring shape of a stone in his palm when she tells him she is pregnant; it is shocking then to discover that this whole event may be misremembered, or even dreamt. Yet the clues are there already, Jake knows how memory can make a
shattered dream come true. He weaves a rich fabric of memories: repeated images of ripening cherries, visions of a glass house, tangled branches, secret letters, a miniskirts hopeless pockets, yellow shoes and squares of Battenberg cake, even the yellow tinge of his wifes eyelids; nevertheless, it is increasingly difficult to be sure of the order of events or if certain things have happened at all. The Wilderness is about one mans tragedy but is also a lyrical exploration of wider issues, of love and family, of development and unravelling, of life as a series of oppositions: Create, destroy, destroy, create. A see-saw, a tide, life, death poetically tilting from one pole to the other. This debut novel is so intricate and intriguing that it demands to be read twice. Read it at least once; it was certainly a real contender for this years Orange Prize.
Caroline Drennan is a writer and a teacher. Runner up in the Orange Short Story competition in 2005, she has recently gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia portraitsiberuttrek
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Interview by Alexander Laurence
The Rehearsal Eleanor Catton Granta, 2009 12.99 ISBN: 978 1 84708 116 2 317pp
to follow? The authors I always turn to, am the most passionate about, are the ones that provide me with that. I read with my heart, my gut. I want to feel, I want to cry, I want to be the hero/ heroine and feel their pain. I want to immerse myself inside the constructed world so that all else falls away. But a novel will always be a constructed world, a fictive vision created by an author to manipulate a reaction, a pointof-view, an emotion. Catton knows this, and Catton plays with this. The novel opens as a constructed world which does not seek to disguise itself from being anything other than a construct, with characters that are not real, whose speech is heightened and perfect in the way we often hope wed managed to speak with hindsight - in the absence of an audience, or another character with better lines. If only wed had the time to rehearse. It is Brechtian in its scope and execution, and Catton is the Stage Manager and Director and Playwright. We first meet The Saxophone Teacher, a character who in essence becomes our strange narrator and counterpoint through the tangled web, the yew hedges of the maze we pace through, ever-searching for the meaning at its centre. She reminded me of the menacing compre in Cabaret singing Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome. Seeing and understanding far more than we do, satisfied and smug in our
All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. As You Like It: Act 2, Sc 7 A few pages in of The Rehearsal and I could not get these lines from my mind. Chapters in, I realised that was probably Eleanor Cattons intention all along. These lines fall like shadows beyond the footlights and scenery of her chapters; they form the crux, the conceit of her narrative structure, provide the intellectual heartbeat behind each sentence. The Rehearsal is a maze-like exploration of the very nature of fiction, and the principle human need for it. From the off I was disorientated. Where was the protagonist? Their hubris? Their epic journey of self-discovery that I was
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ignorance.
And underneath all the constructs something darker and much more disturbing lies: our need for the construct itself
It is through her that we meet Isolde, the younger sister of Victoria; the Victoria who has scandalised the school by having an affair with Mr Saladin, her teacher. By default of familial association, Isolde must now play the part of the-sister-of-the-girl-who-hadsex- with-a-teacher. Some girls will be in awe of her, vicariously delight in being near to her. Others will be jealous because Isolde has a better part in the drama unfolding around them. Then there is Stanley, who wants to be an actor. Who wants to feel something, be somebody, who wishes he had a secret, a dark blooming ink-stain of a secret that he could brood over and shrug away, who wants to be an actor so somebody will see him. And because we need them to, their narratives run alongside each other, eventually intermingle into tightly woven threads. Why else, other than so we care, so that we can wonder and ponder and learn about ourselves; explore the last taboos, strip away social constraints and the deep-rooted fears in our subconscious? In a truly Brechtian way, of course. The Rehearsal is like a giant doublesided jigsaw puzzle of a novel. One wanders through the sentences and chapters, piecing little bits together, with no idea of how it will look once its complete, or how one will react once it
is. Somewhere in the middle you fear you are starting to begin the process of disappointment, but you carry on and forget that moment because it suddenly, and youre not quite sure just how, but it does, it makes sense. And underneath all the constructs something darker and much more disturbing lies: our need for the construct itself. And it is this undercurrent that makes The Rehearsal such a remarkable novel. In all the setpieces, in the beautiful lines, in the parts and the roles, in the sentences and in the words, there is something that makes the world go a little off kilter. And isnt that the point? Id be happy if you told me just enough of the facts so I could imagine it. So I could recreate it for myself. So I could imagine that I was really there.
Janet Aspey is a recent MA Creative Writing graduate with a drama background. She is particularly interested in feminist history and literature, and is currently working on her second novel.
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More Trees to Climb Ben Moor Portobello Books, 2009 9.99 ISBN 978 1 84627 198 4 140 pp
Wonderfully introduced by Stewart Lee, who manages to evoke quite a few titters himself in the small space afforded him, these remarkable tales are hugely entertaining. All three stories demonstrate Ben Moors inherent love of language. Playful puns, interesting expressions and silly sounds abound in prose that is in many ways a celebration of words and all that words can represent: this has the effect of making More Trees to Climb feel joyous and endearing. How else can you respond to a writer that is prepared to create a character descended from Handel just so he can say that the name opens doors? Coelacanth, the first story in the collection, is probably the strongest of the three. Moor varies the tempo of the narrative skilfully, the jokes are very strong and the conclusion is particularly uplifting. Moor draws you willingly into a world that appears set apart from logic only to use this parallel place to hold a mirror to our own world; the story is more intelligently constructed than Moor would seemingly have you believe at times, but dont be fooled: More Trees to Climb is worth opening just to find out what serious tree-climbing can teach you about life and love. There are some incredibly funny sections to be found in Not Everything is Significant and Supercollider for the Family too, but these two stories possess the occasional joke that
More Trees to Climb is a bizarre, fantastical and deeply amusing collection of three one-man shows-cum-short stories from Ben Moor, an individual whose CV is the very embodiment of fringe culture. A stalwart of the Edinburgh Fringe, Ben Moor has built a career out of stage work, Wheres Wally? type appearances in TV comedies of varying degrees of success and a small part in the recent film version of Casanova. Hopefully More Trees to Climb will spark the beginning-of-the-end of the marginalization of a very real comedic talent though: it is a gem. Through the competitive tree-climbing of Coelacanth, the time-travelling diaries of Not Everything is Significant, and the domestic particle accelerator of Supercollider for the Family, Moor transports us with three unique narratives to a world of surreal humour, childish fun and at times even tender warmth.
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translates poorly from the stage and this can annoyingly disrupt the flow of the respective narratives as a result. Nevertheless the clever and spooky way in which the narrative voices of biographer and footnoter are intertwined in Not Everything is Significant and the unusual, challenging subject matter of particle physics in Supercollider for the Family means Moor offers the kind of imaginative ambition in his writing that allows him to be forgiven the occasional misfire. His fearless approach to attempting the expression of pretty much any twisted and weird notion in his head makes Moor a writer who creates incredibly unpredictable and exciting prose to read. You have no idea whats coming next or even where you are at times, yet at the end of it all you can be guaranteed youll be begging for Moor. (My apologies, this man is a bad influence).
Writing with Light

Michelle Sank: Wondrous Wondrous is a project that examines femininity in older women, in the context of contemporary society where the aging body is perceived as no longer attractive. In these images Sank challenges this notion by exploring the ageing skin as something beautiful in itself, where body awareness and sensuality can still be enjoyed. She is also interested in the vulnerability, internal reflections and the wisdom that can accompany women of this age group. Older people are rarely the focus of photographic portraiture, and Sanks work presents a significant re-evaluation of visual traditions. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Michelle Sank has been living and working in the United Kingdom since 1987. Her photographic work explores issues around social and cultural diversity, and it has been widely exhibited in the U.S.A, Mexico, Europe, South Africa and Australia. Her most recent publications are Becoming (Ffotogallery, 2006) and The Waters Edge (Open Eye Gallery & Liverpool University Press, 2007). For more information visit the artists website www.michellesank.com.
Rhodri Mogford is an Oxford graduate in English, with an MA in Film from UCL. He is Welsh, passionate and dedicated to literature, the arts, and all things cultural. He currently works in the editorial department at Continuum Books in London.
Curator Sara-Jayne Parsons received an MA in art history from the University of North Texas. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation. Sara lives and works in Liverpool. She is the Arts Editor for Incorporating Writing.
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Coming of Age
Article by Faith Roswell
Coming of age rites are a part of life for many cultures; from tribal ceremonies sometimes involving tattooing and genital mutilation to Native American Vision quests, the line between childhood and adulthood is clear. After the line is crossed, the child or adolescent is considered an adult and is allowed to raise a family, support their community and have the responsibility not given to a child. In February the news broke in the UK that thirteen year-old Alfie Patten had fathered a child by a fifteen year-old girl.* That fact alone wasnt really shocking for it happens on a regular basis in the UK, but this boy looked much younger than his years- with a childlike voice, no stubble and a worrying naivety. When asked how he would support the child financially, he
asked the reporter whats financially? In another part of the country, thirteen year-old Hannah Jones, who has leukaemia, defended her decision to turn down a heart transplant that could prolong her life. I just decided that there were too many risks and even if I took it there might be a bad outcome afterwards. Ive been in hospital too much. I dont want this and its my choice not to have it. Her maturity persuaded a court that she could make the decision for herself and the case was thrown out. In the UK, coming of age is a little harder to define We generally see coming of age as the transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood. As far as I remember, there was no distinct moment or realisation that I had become an adult but somewhere between assuming that
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adults had no fun and whinged constantly about mortgages, and standing on the university campus with five suitcases, three hours away from home, I was no longer a child. Though many children and teenagers maintain that they cant wait to grow up, journalists, bloggers, many parents and just about all grandparents lament the fact that today children grow up before their time. But when is their time? It is easy to say eighteen as this is the age of adulthood in the eyes of the UK law but many children are becoming adults, or at least acting so, long before the age of eighteen.
writes books about children coming from troubled backgrounds, which sometimes read as a fictional version of a misery memoir, with a bit more humour and some nave comments. Although there are no graphic descriptions, the target age group is nine to twelve year-olds, expected to have some understanding of what is going on and the average age of the lead characters is ten. Though I am taking into account the fact that the protagonists in any story are usually the same age as the intended reading group, many of the stories are about coming of age- a theme more usually found in teenage fiction. For example, Bad Girls is about a young girl (Mandy) who is bullied because her parents keep her looking childish. She befriends the fostered girl next door, who shoplifts, but after her friend is arrested, Mandy finally stands up to her parents and restyles herself, and The Diamond Girls is about the youngest of four sisters (all with different fathers) and contains postnatal depression, teenage pregnancy, suicide and domestic abuse. In 1996, Melvin Burgesss controversial and award-winning novel Junk was published. Its brutally honest portrayal of drug addiction was in the same vein as Trainspotting (published in 1993), but instead of being in their twenties, the lead characters in Junk were fourteen. Burgess himself said I didnt write Junk just to be shocking and that he doesnt think anyone who knows young people could find the book unsuitable. Compare these storylines to that of I Capture The Castle, by Dodie Smith. Written in the 1940s and set in the 1920s the lead character, seventeen year-old Cassandra Mortmain is said to be on the brink of childhood and
People are also changing biologically. The age at which girls menstruate has been steadily falling since the 1870s, probably due to a better quality of life (most importantly health and nutrition)
It is interesting that in the last decade, a new type of book has become popular. Walk into any bookshop today and I guarantee that somewhere in the bestsellers list will be the latest misery memoir, of which Dave Pelzers A Child Called It is surely the best known. Biographies of childhood abuse, sickness and poverty, most of these books seem to be a form of catharsis for their authors- a documentation of their overcoming the events in their childhood. Almost all admit to coming of age early. This theme translates to fiction easily. For example, the hugely popular childrens author Jacqueline Wilson
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We are constantly shown examples of people choosing not to grow up- in daytime talk shows, news appeals to the parents of abandoned babies, documentaries etc, but sometimes, the choice to grow up is denied or restricted
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adultery. It follows the life of Cassandra, who begins the novel consciously nave and comes of age as she falls in love- though never actually experiencing more than her first kiss. Her mistakes (like kissing the wrong person) are relatively small, she is not forced to come of age and the novel ends with her contemplating her future, which looks promising.
Stumbling across Saddam Husseins execution on Youtube, as I did recently, is not a good thing but children are becoming immersed in adult life increasingly early
With the exception of Cassandra, none of the people I have mentioned (living or fictional) have come of age naturally or at the right time and the popularity of this theme in modern childrens literature suggests that children are able to relate to this. Though not a dreaded misery memoir (yet), the case of Hannah Jones surely proves that in the face of necessity, a child can grow up very fast and at Alfie Pattens other extreme, behaving like an adult does not always mean that a child has grown up. Many of these people began the coming of age process due to their own actions: by handling a situation in the right way, taking on responsibility or learning a lesson. Part of this process is the choice these people make: the choice to grow up. We are constantly shown examples of people choosing not to grow up- in daytime talk shows, news appeals to
the parents of abandoned babies, documentaries etc, but sometimes, the choice to grow up is denied or restricted. With the news and the internet being available twenty-four hours a day, children have access to information about the world when they want it, can research the storylines of books they are reading and have more time to process this information and draw their own conclusions, which is part of becoming an adult; however, the media coverage given to crime can make parents overreact as the Channel 4 documentary Cotton Wool Kids highlighted. In one respect, the parents featured were trying to keep their children safe in order for them to stay children for as long as possible, but in another, they were forcing them to come of age by projecting their fears about the world onto them. Many of the children featured were in therapy for anxiety! One of the parents said (with a straight face) that she was looking into microchipping her children, and most of the children knew exactly why they were being kept under lock and key: Mum thinks I might get abducted like Madeleine McCann said one six year old who was forbidden to play in the garden and being shown the news story by way of explanation. Stumbling across Saddam Husseins execution on Youtube, as I did recently, is not a good thing but children are becoming immersed in adult life increasingly early- and with technology developing every year this is something that cannot be ignored. People are also changing biologically. The age at which girls menstruate has been steadily falling since the 1870s, probably due to a better Aquinoof life Lisha quality Rooney (most importantly health and nutrition). It is now not unusual for girls to begin
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puberty at age nine and menstruate at age eleven. Boys still begin puberty later than girls, but that age is falling too. This results in some children biologically becoming adults before even reaching their teens! This could be a contributing factor to children behaving like adults and/or coming of age so early. Behaving like an adult does not automatically mean a child has come of age. However, it can start the process. Children who get pregnant often step up to the responsibility and become an adult that way- as can children who are carers. Sometimes responsibility can make a child grow up, though sadly not in all cases. I say sadly because although journalists, bloggers, many parents and just about all grandparents may disagree at first, surely if a child is in a situation that needs them to grow up quickly, is it not better for them to grow up and fit the role than to stay a child and handle it as such? While a fourteen year-old who looks eighteen may not have the maturity of a person who has mentally come of age, Hannah Jones looks like a thirteen yearold but clearly came of age a very long time ago. Although a Vision Quest may be out of the question, perhaps it is time the UK took a less linear approach to adulthood. __________________________________ __________________________________ * Since this article was finished, Alfie Patten did a DNA test- he is not the father. (The real father is fourteen.)
Sometimes responsibility can make a child grow up, though sadly not in all cases
Faith Roswell has a BA in Creative Writing and is currently working on a novel. This is her first article for Incorporating Writing.
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Zeitgeist: Katya Shipster
Interview by G.P. Kennedy
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My take on Age, as the theme of this issue of the magazine, is to adopt a more Zeitgeist-y approach (there, I have said itthe Z-word. I apologise. Yes, I understand that I have not just let myself down but the whole Incorporating Writing family. But there it is; ferret out of non-proverbial sack. Lets just move on). To this end I interviewed Katya Shipster of Michael Joseph Publicity, part of Penguin Books. Katya is a friend of the magazine, having helped out with author contacts on previous issues. Katya Shipstergraduated in English Literature from the University of Birmingham, and went straight into a job at Waterstones. She has worked at Michael Joseph Publicity since 2007. We chewed the metaphorical on the issue of the Digital Age. Is the paper-based book going the way of vinyl records? Do you mean in terms of the introduction of e-books? I think its a similar discussion that was had when paperbacks camein to replace hardbacks. Its not a replacement as such;its offering content in a different format, giving the consumer more options that suit their particular reading requirements. So with this in mind, surely its more of a positive step offering people who arent necessarily natural readers, or who cant incorporate reading into their current lifestyle a new option of how to fit in a dose of literature. Im in the category of taking a book a day away with me on holiday, so the convenience and suitcase-space-saving of having all 7 books electronically instead is really appealing. Added to which lugging around manuscripts for work is very tiring, so the same
argument applies. Having said that - I will never stop buying books. The thrill of owning a beautiful object, which holds an enthralling, completely addictive story within its pages, and then storing it on my bookshelves to have forever is too seductive for most book buyers. The act of reading has such an emotive and emotional connection with the physical object that youre holding, and I just cant see that fading away any time soon.
Self publishing is another way to present your work and a step closer to getting a readership. If someone has the drive, the ambition and the belief to make a go of it, fantastic!
- What effects are each of the following having on the nature of publishing?ebooks? Im not really comfortable going into any depth at all on this as this is absolutely not my area, but a laymans opinion is that eBooks make fantastic financial sense to get into as a publishing house-cheap to make and distribute - all we have to do is to make themas user friendly as possible. The reading options that are made possible using this technology is very exciting, and will open up many future interesting avenues in the way that we get our content. With this in mind - eBooks are clearly going to be huge in the future! Theyre already massively popular in the States, and the UK wont be far behind as soon as the Kindle hits our shores and gives the consumer a further technology option alongside the Sony eReader.
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Web downloads? Im afraid I dont know anything at all about web downloads - not something Ive ever come across apart from whats been hyped in the press...Id put them in the same class as the eBook, as soon as the technology to read these things arrives here in a big way, then Im sure the popularity of the free content will increase, but it doesnt seem that at the moment theyre having any impact on actual sales...I could be wrong! self publishing? There has been a levelling of communication outletsin recent years its now so much easier to get heard, especially if you have something interesting to say.Self publishing slots into this category,and thesame applies for people tweeting, blogging, or interacting on social networking sites. There are so many more options available for ordinary people to express themselves, and, if what you have to say is of someinterest, there will be an audience for it. Self publishing is a very healthy part of the industry - I used to work in a literary agency, and one of the most noticeable things is how obvious a great book is when you come across it. It just leaps out of the page and smacks you in the face! I think that if your content is good, and you cover the basics to getting it out there, its going to get noticed sooner or later. The story with JK Rowling that 6 or something publishers rejected the Harry Potter books isnt that remarkable - the lesson here is that it did eventually get picked up, and clearly rightly so. If the content is good - it will get noticed. Self publishing is another way to present your work - and a step closer to getting a readership. If someone has the drive, the ambition and the belief to make a go of it, fantastic! What effect are these having on the
serious literature? Literary fiction? Ill answer this question in the question below! (Prescience?) In the Digital Age is it true that attention spans are shortening or is this a common myth/misconception? One of the things thats drilled into us here is that yes, were in competition with other titles, and other publishing houses, but we definitely cant forget that were also in competition with other leisure activities - movies, iPods, etc etc. Were competing for peoples precious and limited free time, and how they choose to spend it. And if they choose to spend it reading, then youre jostling with other titles for that space. With that in mind, Id say that you probably have a shorter amount of time to pitch the book to a potential reader - and that pitch can come in many forms, whether its the copy on the back of the book, the jacket, a newspaper review, an author interview, advertising, in store promotion, or TV/ radio interviews. All of these (hopefully!) add up to a convincing sales pitch and a lot of noise around a certain title which makes it a must-buy. We all make such snap buying decisions - that as a publisher or a publicist your aim is to make it as easy as possible for a consumer to make the right decision that goes your way. But I wouldnt say publishing is changing to reflect a shorter attention span in any other way long novels are still very very long (see Marian Keyes last novel at 885 pages! a real challenge for our production team when we put it into paperback). As peoples general reading habits are evolving, more and more its about when people are reading - in the bath, on the train on the way to work, on the beach, in bed - the books theyre buying are reflecting these moods. Literary fiction is sadly being hit by this particular trend - people need a gripping page turner or
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an in depth explanation of the current financial situation for example, rather than something dense and challenging. I work in Michael Joseph, which is the commercial arm of Penguin - and have a partner who has never been much of a reader, and so am very passionate that people should only read the things that really interest them, and not waste their precious time on anything else. Theres shouldnt be any pressure to read a book because its widely held to be a fabulous novel, if, after the first few chapters, you arent getting along with it at all. And its pressure like this that turns people off reading altogether. It drives me nuts when I meet people who tell me on hearing I work in publishing that theyre not a reader. Its simply not true! They read the paper, because it interests them for example, and thats a particular reading habit, so as long as you can find something that theyre really interested in - theyll be a reader in no time! Ive seen someone whos only ever read 2 books before not be able to put down Lance Armstrongs autobiography for 2 whole days; on planes, in a car, at every possible second. And this person wasnt a reader! In this tougher economic climate, it seems that in every area of industry only the strong survive. This absolutely applies to books and publishing- only the truly great literary novels do well, only the really interesting memoirs sell, only the really excellent page turning thrillers work. As people get even choosier about how they spend their money, they are much less likely to take a punt on something that might be worth a look. It certainly doesnt give you any room for lazy publishing, and every title you work onneedsfull attention tosurvive.We absolutely need to nurture literarytalent and support debut novelists, butultimately
must publish what the public wants tobuy, and if thats sadly no longer the high end literary fiction, then that opinion needs listening to and responding to. How has you job as a Publicist changed in recent years? Definitely. You have to adapt as the way people receive and respond to information changes. I started at Penguin in 2005 when the power of the internet was only just starting to be harnessed in book PR, and it wasnt until late 2006/ early 2007 that we really started to include an online strategy into our PR plans for titles. The job is all about creating awareness around a title for the people who are most likely to buy it, and make them think that its a really good idea to buy it. I can speak directly to some of those people online whether on a blog, or on a social networking site, news site, book review site or even on Twitter. This means that if youre trying to promote, say a new crime author, going directly to somewhere like Crimesquad or Crimetime is really helpful in creating a buzz in the exact circles youre trying to reach. A national review has the reach, butdoesnttarget so specifically the audience for the book in the same way as an special interest site does. How do you see your job changing in the next 10 years? I think the days of blindly sending out 100s of books to the same set of reviewers is coming to an end - its very costly, and Im not sure that the cost involved is necessarily offset by the amount of coverage gained. Savvier and more streamlined working practices greater use of general media outlets to send out general releases instead of the large review copy mailings. Although some things will remain the same cultivating and maintaining relationships
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in specific areas of the media and the industry - always valuable and not easy to replace. Really surprising avenues and collaborations arise out of the most innocent starting conversations. Probably fewer author tours - people do come out less and less to see their favourite author. Its only ever the really big names they come out for now, and the big celebs dont always give over their busy schedules to a week whizzing around Yorkshire signing books - mores the pity! There are definitely more literature festivals than ever before who knows, even more of those?
Fifty years on - Id expect the words to float past in some sort of interactive hologram...
Where will publishing be in 10 years? And in fifty years? This is a tough one -the e-book will be a firmly established and usable format, and all the teething problems with the various readers will have been ironed out. Well probably be reading books on screens that can adapt to the virtual ink if needs be? The technology will be much more interactive - video links embedded in the text, pictures, references to other sources will link to those other sources. Acookery book will give you cook-a-long instructions for example.Its very exciting! Penguins digi-experiment last year www.wetellstories.co.uk - played around with all sorts of story telling, all only possible with the use of internet. Have a look at Charles Cummings Google Maps thriller story - itll give you an idea of what the future will be like! Penguin are publishing a digi-novel in February 2010 written by Anthony Zuiker the creator of CSI - its the start of a new serial killer series, and features cyber bridges online,
accessible only with codes contained within the novel. The novel will stand completely alone without this added content, but the videos greatly enhance the reading experience. For example as the killer sends a video on a USB stick to the police force, youll be able to see that video. Ive seen some of the videos this week, and its really creepy stuff. This is definitely the start of an evolution in publishing. People may be buying fewer physical books, but therell certainly still be the big hitters having massive launches the international Stephanie Meyer hysteria shows that theres still a huge hunger for the printed word, and the new must read hot author, and thats not going to change. Fifty years on - Id expect the words to float past in some sort of interactive hologram...
GP Kennedy is the Deputy Editor (NW)/Reviews. He is a writer, lover of language and would-be goliard. Further he is a passionate pedagogue and an alliteration amateur. be a professional goalkeeper.
Looks great - and lots inside Each edition promises something new to the reader Ive subscribed to this magazine from the start and the quality just gets better
PDF Red Ink 6/ Summer 2009 (ISSN 1751-1496). Eds. Peter Lewin & Andrew Oldham Cover Art: Badrobot Poetry: Matthew Friday, R.G. Gregory, Jenny Harrow, Kathleen Kenny, F.J. Milne, Molly Naylor, Nusra Nazir, Phoebe Power Story: Kath McKay
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The Internet Identity Crisis: Why Age Is Becoming Irrelevant In The Search For Significance
Article by Rebecca Richards
Do not trust anyone who tells you that there are two kinds of people. There are never two kinds of people. There are polarities, certainly, but anyone that neglects to acknowledge the sliding scale of grey in between simply cannot be called a thinker. Happy or sad, introvert or extrovert, old or young. There may well be examples to pluck from society to show solely the two divisive stereotypes at either end, but this has never served the common good. What exactly is it that defines youth? As a matter of fact, where in that grey scale does one become old? I have a number of acquaintances ranging in physical age from nine to ninety, and there is not one place upon that age line where I would be happy to place a pin marking middle age, old age, childhood, etc. The nine year old recently waxed lyrical to me about how shes not
entirely sure that she wants to be buried in the ground when she dies, but that shes been doing lots of meditation. A friend of mine at eighteen recently had a beautiful baby boy; what is it that enables her to care for him maturely, while other mums, some much older than she, compare day-glo orange tans, and smoke and drink copiously in front of their offspring? A middle-aged relative of mine does not do well with meeting new people, and her timidity is overcompensated by loud laughter and sycophantic behaviour, much like the angst-ridden teenage stereotype. I do not wish to reiterate the tired idea that age bears little relevance on behaviour, because this itself is also misleading. A more in-depth understanding of people inevitably follows from spending more time around them. The people I have previously
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mentioned, however, do exist and therefore must also have their place somewhere on an x-axis of maturity and a y-axis of time. In this age, when our children are exposed to much more than previous generations, thanks to the internet and mass media, it seems that maturity has less of a solid relationship with age now than it perhaps ever has before.
In part I believe that this can be attributed to the rise of the West in the world, particularly in notions of the importance of individualism over social conformity
A recent study from the biologist Dr Aric Sigman suggests that too much online interaction will reduce the ability of our genes. When distant communication is not combined with physical interaction, but instead of it, this lack of contact is believed to have an adverse affect on a number of genes, especially those in relation to the immune system and recognising emotions, that rely on certain social skills being underdeveloped. The children of the Western world have not known a time without instantaneous net access to just about everything. At a time where it is totally un-necessary to visit the library to ask a real person for information, or go outside to buy a paper to find out whats going on in the world, how can this help but hinder their interpersonal skills? A worrying question also remains as to how much of this nownownow information is even relevant. A overabundance of simple time-wasting activities, in place purely to eradicate hours from lives, seems to be contributing to a lack of a national identity among young people. Twittering,
social networking, online games, and other peoples blogs are all extraordinarily unsatisfying ways to fill hours in place of reading, debate, art and discussion. Television shows depicting underwhelmed thirtysomethings, such as Spaced and Peep Show, are fantastically popular within this demographic, seemingly because they are reflecting a shared mundane view of the world. Society has split into those content to be whatever is currently passing for mainstream, and those unfulfilled by what is on offer and looking for something more. Youth, at the moment, seems to symbolise a bitter brand of discontentment. To quote Chuck Palahniuk We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday well be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we wont. While we can watch ever-stuck characters play out the same routines on the television and the internet, humorous mostly because we are desperate not to become them, writers of previous decades both catalogued and inspired their generations. Jack Kerouac, in his early thirties, wrote semi-biographically of his travels in On The Road; We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move. It is hard to pinpoint any one book now, that isnt based on the aforementioned apathy, to define these times. The likes of Irvine Welsh and Hubert Selby Jr have recorded our current bleak outlook, representing it in a variety of underground dystopian forms. Gradually, it seems as though the celebration of life and the urge to go explore both the world and yourself are being usurped by dark internal observations. In reaction to the unpleasant world we find ourselves discovering, through both literature and the media, comes
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insecure, childhood-clinging escapism. Based on figures from the New York Times, one of the highest selling books is embarrassingly (in the name of human endeavour) the Harry Potter series, and more increasingly the nauseating Stephanie Meyer collection, Twilight. Before it is pointed out that these books are categorised as teen fiction, let me assure you that though it began with those in their teens, these simplifications of literature have not rested there. Given the sales, it is statistically unlikely that you will not know an adult in possession at least one J.K. Rowling book, and I dont mean for their children. Unlike children fifty years ago reading The Lord of the Rings, or The Chronicles of Narnia, these reads offer little to nothing in the way of depth or self exploration. Regardless of how much dire and desperate plot inspires their creation, straightforward heroes and villains are becoming increasingly popular in all aspects of the media-driven creative industries. Potentially complex characters are reduced down to a few recognisable symbols and a handful of obvious neuroses. While this is perhaps understandably rewardable for children, who are still learning how to interact and understand, it is worrying trend in adults, betraying a short attention span and lack of drive for meatier subjects to explore. Escapist novels for adults of the past decades have at least sold us the actual potential for physical escape; fantasy childrens books do not even have this positive attribute for the adult reader. The literary choice for those in their twenties and thirties seems to be fiction from other, more unrelatable decades, or mental candy floss in the form of childrens literature. Growing up with this sort of intellectual fodder keeping the mind pre-pubescent,
the question remains as to how one can understand the world if one is does not get out and live in it. The answer seems to be to categorise yourself in as definitive a way as possible, to iron out your insecurities, then present that image to the world. And so the society of young people becomes heavily divided. In the quest for individuality and some kind of relatable way of life, one can now spot goths, punks, hippies, mods, emos, grunge, pop, skaters, surfers, bikers, ravers, trendies, sports players, all and more forming a great boiling pot of progress. Within each of these divides there are yet more segregations. The Gothic sub-culture for example contains Lolita, darkwave, Victorian, vampire, gothic punk, PVC and cybergoths. These are just some of the incredibly precise branches of this particular following. This generation seems utterly desperate to define itself in exact terms, adopting the viewpoints of a particular group because part of them match their own, while taking comfort in the thought of being different. Now that it is possible to find anonymous groups of over the internet, it is easy to access any kind of subculture or counter-culture, and therefore become fixated on that one group only, potentially neglecting the rest of your self. The negativity of some young people towards convention is not surprising. The teenage years have, since the term teenager was coined in the twenties, been a time of transition, to find out how far the rules can be bent or broken. In this decade, however, not only are there few common ground outlets to explore as a generational group, but there has been a consistent dumbing down of thought and knowledge. Presumably, to a number of that 18 - 30 bracket, this must feel incredibly insulting, particularly if an individual has
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the resources (which they do) to find out about a time when there wasnt an overwhelming desire to have everyone understand everything in the simplest and most effort-free way possible. In part I believe that this can be attributed to the rise of the West in the world, particularly in notions of the importance of individualism over social conformity. But this cannot be the whole of the answer. An element of the fractured nature of our youth must come from the fact that there is nothing as new, exciting, and ultimately connecting as previous generations perhaps had to latch on to. Certain fashions wax and wane, such as the current emo style apparently requiring its followers, among other attributes, to have a slicked sideways fringe and talk ironically about self-harm. You have perhaps seen them. However, these styles primarily involve only aesthetic and musical tastes, with little to no political or social message. It perhaps isnt surprising, considering that we have had no national tragedy or joy to bring us together in a great youth movement of the Noughties. There is no common cause for us to stand against, and therefore no common ground with each other. We do not have a Viet Nam or a war on AIDS. We have a war in Iraq that we understand too much about to unite either way. We have a war on terrorism keeping our selves in constant fear of standing out or standing up. Instead of forging a new counter-culture, the new generation is content both/ either to hide behind computer screens, or adopt tried and tested ways of life. Internet message boards are filled to bursting with disenchanted teenagers, pining for years that they werent even alive for. Sandi Thom sings about wishing she was a punk rocker with flowers in her hair, choosing a suitable pic n mix of genres and causes to suit
her needs. In the cases where there isnt a specific group to match your highly specific interests, there is always a broader scene to become a part of. Though now to become part of any specialist social group tends to require an internet connection, real time events and gatherings such as festivals still maintain a high turnout, showing us that though cliques may be forming, there is still some need for genuine contact. For the past few years I have been living in a quiet town in the South West. The folk scene is thriving, and it isnt just bearded pipe-smoking ale-drinkers enjoying the music. All ages come to see little known artists with names like Jinder play folksy kind of blues at mostly local but packed out gigs. Thats a very particular kind of energy to relate to, and not one to be seen on MTV. Not one to be found on the internet either, that poor replacement for live music and real contact. In London last week, I also went to one of a number of events I could have chosen from that advertised the blending of poetry and music in a Beat generation style evening. It was spell-binding. I couldnt keep from smiling for the beautiful reason that everyone there was enjoying themselves. There was much more of a sense of self from this variety of ages, brought together with a love of poems and guitars, and therefore no pressure to be restrictive with any other ways we defined ourselves. I freely admit that I am also doing nothing to bring my generation together - there are simply too many of us, divided - and I am not even sure that in our numbers any coming-together would be a positive thing. I am also not certain if we could now. It seems realist that we cannot concentrate ourselves together: there are so many distractions, so many ways to thankfully define oneself, saving the ultimate bother of actually thinking
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about it. The internet is our new gathering ground, though little organised, productive thought has yet come of it. Speaking for myself, and certain groups of peers, I much prefer to spend my time among an older crowd, whether old in years or experience. Like every other person whose company I have enjoyed, I most certainly cannot relate to the majority of my generation; it will be decades before I can list my folky music collection without having the reaction of Really...? or Who? It is partly this sense of shame at being young that drives some people to seek out the company of those who have spent years determining who they are, or joining an already established group. There is very little pride to be had in a generation whose defining feature is often laziness. Dont go to the gym, take diet pills. Dont get to know someone, type with them online. Dont read, wait for the movie to come out. Dont find out who you are on your own, whatever you do. Join a clique and they can tell you who you are, reinforcing your bewildered identity with a handful of shared likes. It is very difficult to calculate even a rough amount of people who cannot think like this, though they are undoubtedly there. They are a part of the grey area. They are Generation X, again and again, that small persistent minority unable or unwilling to form their own new culture, or blend in with whatever fad is currently zipping through the young minds of the nation. There is perhaps no solution; more awareness of the world can only lead us to divide further as more information is available about the very specific kind of person that you can be. If I had not heard folk music, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, I would not know that this is what I most enjoy being around. The danger lies in
neglecting the development of the rest of ones personality in exchange for that comfort. It is not a terrible thing to find a small group to relate to, but in running from larger emotional upheavals in the name of ease, we are in danger of losing that necessary component to human endeavour; a positive sense of a relatable cultural identity.
Rebecca Richards is currently on a Creative Writing BA with the intention of getting up the courage to try and have her poetry published. She spent a year teaching in Viet Nam, which is the primary source of her inspiration. She dislikes being asked my age as she is still in her twenties.
BANIPAL 33
honours the life and legacy of Mahmoud Darwish Let us go, you and I, on two paths: You, to a second life, promised to you by language in a reader who might survive the fall of a comet on earth. I, to a rendezvous I postponed more than once, with a death I promised a glass of red wine in a poem. - Mahmoud Darwish
BUY OR SUBSCRIBE AT: www.banipal.co.uk

Incwriters OCL (Magazines) Award Winner 2008: Banipal
Banipal 33 opens with a major 70page feature on the life and legacy of Mahmoud Darwish. It includes articles, tributes, poems and many photographs of the great Palestinian and world poet, who passed away on Saturday 9 August following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas, at the age of 67. Darwish left behind, writes Sinan Antoon, an entire continent of poems whispering and singing inside Arabic and calling on us to reacquaint ourselves with its topography. The feature includes a poem written by Mahmoud Darwish earlier this year, At the Station of a Train which Fell Off the Map, translated by Sinan Antoon. In addition we present a foretaste from Mahmoud Darwishs last collection, with a selection of poems from the collection, that wll be published by Saqi Books next year as If I Were a Stone, translated by Catherine Cobham.
Bannipal 33 includes fellow poets, and writers from around the world contribute their feelings on his passing, including Saadi Yousef, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Denys Johnson Davies, Wole Soyinka, Mark Strand, Abdo Wazen, Kadhim Jihad Hassan, Alberto Manguel, Amjad Nasser, Marie-Thrse Abdel-Messih, Giuseppe Goffredo, Fadhil al-Azzawi, Judith Kazantzis, Thomas Hegh, Peter Clark, Clara Jans, Gaber Asfour, Bernard Nol, Mohammed Bennis, Naomi Shihab Nye, Stephen Watts, Qassim Haddad, Saif alRahbi, Issa J Boullata, Taha Adnan, and Mahmoud Shukair.
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The Classic: James Methven
Short Interview by Rhodri Mogford

From a very young age I have always been fascinated by old books. By that I dont mean that I am particularly keen on dusty volumes and leather-bound first editions (although I am certainly not averse to either). Instead what excites me about literature is that you can travel back through generations, centuries even, using the fiction of the time in order to learn more about humanity and society both then and now. I found and indeed still do find something incredibly reassuring about a story or novel that has survived the test of time, which has aged well if you like. Perhaps the requirement of this sort of validation is evidence of an inability or even cowardice on my part to take occasional risks with my reading, to try something as yet untried. Nevertheless I think it feels incredibly rewarding to plunder the annals of yesterdays fiction in search of something timeless, irrespective of what that may say about me as a reader or as a person. For the satisfaction I gain when I am absorbed in even the oldest literature is thrilling enough to make it seem like the ink is still drying on the page. Sometimes in life you can also come across individuals that are able to give literature a similar sense of reinvigoration on the page. It now gives me great pleasure to interview one of those people in my life for Incorporating Writing. Dr James Methven has been a seminal influence on my reading tastes and on how I understand and interpret literature. Raised in Greenock (Scotland) and Gloucester, James studied English and Classics at Brasenose College, Oxford before going on to teach English
at Fyling Hall School in Robin Hoods Bay, North Yorkshire. James took his M. Phil. in the Victorian period, with special options in aestheticism and Dickens, and he worked on vivisection literature for his thesis. From this subject, his D. Phil developed into a study of representations of medical practitioners in Victorian literature from 1858 onwards. Dr Methven has been a Lecturer at Oxford University since 1999, teaching the modern end of the English syllabus (from mid-romantic period onwards), and he was Dean of Oriel College, Oxford for eleven years, taking the reins at the remarkably young age of 28, before stepping down in 2008. James is very interested in Victorian Gothic and modern theatre and he regularly lectures on both subjects at the Faculty in Oxford. He has directed many theatre productions, covering a wide range of theatre styles, and he has reviewed for the Ivor Gurney Journal. I am going to pose some of the big questions about the classics and how literature can, should and indeed does age for James to see what is timeless about literature for him. It will be very interesting both as a reader and as a friend to find out just exactly what he thinks! Which great books endure for you and why? Some really lengthy novels big books have stayed with me as books I return to over and over down the years, and that may be because of the nature of my job (tutor in English literature) and the period I teach (c. 1770 till now). Im drawn back every other year or so to the terrors of the White Whale in Moby Dick. I first read it on the beach at the Gower peninsula in my mid-teens and although the waters off that stretch of sand are
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nothing like the picture we are given in the novel, the book was branded in to me as my first great reading experience. I always get a kick out of it. I think the act of reading was initially a mystery and a challenge to me, and also a means by which I could identify with characters (Poirot, Bond, Holmes), but with Moby Dick something else of how the novel works was brought to light for me style and voice and narrative skill. When I was in my mid-20s I re-read Brideshead Revisited (the uncut 1945 text in a 1951 Penguin paperback) every year or so with pleasure, but I dont think Ive read it all the way through in at least eight years (Im now 40). Whereas Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are now books I re-read every summer with added pleasure each time, as there is so much layered in to the narratives and the language of these texts. Other works I find myself reading again and again include Forsters Howards End. This is a book I can always return to, and, again, it is the slyness of the style which has me coming back. I also must have read Stevensons Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde more times than is good for one but the endless mystery of seeing what lies behind that text is what invites countless rereadings. Are there any particular authors whose entire body of work still resonates for you? Dickens and Eliot. I find I can return to them and burrow in to their prose happily, finding new delights in their different versions of Victorian Britain. Of those I habitually tackle again and again Id have to cite Oliver Twist, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, and, oddly enough, given its
unfinished state, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, and Romola are texts I return to. I love Dickens for the cruel exasperated comedy of his vision; he loves mankind, but he wishes it were better than it is, and smacks it round the head for not being better than it is; when hes not doing this, hes winding himself and us in to states of emotional exhaustion for individuals. Eliots sensibilities are other to this; she displays this incredible sympathetic imagination which derives love for the furthest reaches of mankind from the fact of our love for our nearest and dearest. The relationship of the individual to society is expressed by totally different systems of synecdoche by these authors. Conversely are there any classics you think have been overhyped down the years and that seem more irrelevant or stylistically weak with each re-read? Theres the occasional classic which has underwhelmed me at the time, though often they have come to have further resonance as Ive witnessed the nature of our politics and some of the worlds populations perversely never-ending desire to fight and kill. I found large parts of Orwell dull to read when I was a teenager, though his short essays always gave me something to think about. But his political novels and political novels generally now read more urgently for me. In terms of the stylistically weak, I have this on-off love affair with the Amises, both Kingsley and Martin. And an author in whose prose style I can see nothing interesting is Margaret Atwood. Also, not thats it a classic, I read Julian Fellowess Snobs on holiday at a friends house in Morocco in 2005 and had to pinch myself I couldnt believe that this belated example of arch fiction about the upper classes had found a publisher.
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Which well-known writers have created distinctly superior work as they have got older? Why do you think this is? Do you think writers generally get better with age? Well, Wordsworth is habitually wheeled out at this stage, but I think thats unfair. Writers like all of us gradually morph in personality so it would be unusual to find someone sustaining his or her early sentiments radicals become less radical; those who were not radical become radicalized but Id say you have to weigh energy and drive against experience and acquired craft. Youd expect later works to be more achieved if you followed this line of argument, but I think writers reach a level of maturity as writers roughly around the time when their works first find a public audience and beyond that they are negotiating with their own writing and the perception of it. Someone who has a lengthy career in the public eye (e.g. Auden) is engaged in a relationship of emotion and sensibility with the readers as much as he is being gauged critically by some absolute standard of literary quality. I think Dickens matured wonderfully as writer and I guess thats why there are more of his later works in my list of books I return to. He gradually merged his social conscience with a prose style that kept raising the standard for what was happening in the English novel of the day. Its the same with Henry James its not as if his early work wasnt good, but his later works are accomplished on a different level and his own writings about his art are vital texts. An unauthorised sequel to Catcher in the Rye entitled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye has just been published, writtenby a little-known author called John David California. What do you make of the literary sequel?
Should all great literary works be left to grow old gracefully and untouched? I can imagine there are parts of the American population up in arms about this. Its a question of perceived ownership. What has John David California done that allows him to take a nations much-loved book and alter the meaning of it? Ive not read it yet, so I cant say what I think of it beyond this. There are those rare moments when something wonderful comes about as a result of a profound meditation upon or mediation between the original and a newcomer. Id cite Jean Rhyss Wide Sargasso Sea first in this category. It does feel a bit shabby and coat-tailsish if a writer who wouldnt otherwise have a book that qualitatively earns its way in to the public gaze makes a splash by parachuting in on a muchloved story. If the executors of the estate of an author invite it though, then they only have themselves to blame when you get some work that cheapens your memory of the original. (Im thinking Sebastian Faulkss attempt to ventriloquize Ian Flemings prose and period detail in Devil May Care). Again, it may depend on your sense of relationship to the original character. I loved, for instance, Michael Dibdins The Last Sherlock Holmes Story in which he interweaves Holmes and Watson with Jack the Ripper to stunning effect. And I was hugely taken last year with Geraldine McCaughreans Peter Pan in Scarlet. Books are like faith in that regard; if the original cannot be challenged and scrutinized Im not sure Im that interested in it. Have your reading tastes changed as you have got older? How and why do you think this is? One aspect of my reading habits that has changed is my sense of what is
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funny. I asked a group of current students to take Huxleys Crome Yellow as a core text and rather than rely on an out-dated memory of it I set to with a re-reading of it and found myself laughing my head off. Before Id been amused, where now I was finding barrel laughs. And I think as Ive got older Ive come more to appreciate a range of authors whose writings have a rich vein of irony running through them Daniel Defoe, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Graham Greene authors I read when younger without seeing as much in them as I do now. I think its a question of maturity to language register, and a recognition as to what is funny about how the world works. The other work I have to put a hand up to here and admit Ive only come fully to appreciate as Ive got older is Joyces Ulysses. I read it as an undergrad but was much more taken by Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Now I find its reinventions from chapter to chapter to be an essential part of the next phase of the novel. Which writers from the latter half of the twentieth century onwards and indeed the present day do you think will be admired and appreciated in years to come? Why? Well, sticking within the British Isles Id want to list Beryl Bainbridge, Julian Barnes, Anthony Burgess, Angela Carter, Jim Crace, John Fowles, William Golding, Christopher Logue (Im always pressing his War Music on people), Muriel Spark, and Barry Unsworth. Its style every time; style, and an interest in how we understand the world. I also think the theatre of the 1990s and beyond is such a vibrant part of our culture that it is bound to continue to play in repertoire for years to come. Were already seeing how in the light of new writing the theatre profession is returning to the
plays of the 50s and 60s to reinvestigate the assumptions about theatre history that hold sway. There have been revivals of shows which have helped to re-write our sense of just how pivotal John Osbornes Look Back in Anger was to British theatre. Beyond this coastline there are authors I always buy when the latest work comes out: J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, and I read more and more American modern fiction and would fly a flag for Donald Barthelme, Saul Bellow, William Burroughs, Norman Mailer, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Hunter S. Thompson, John Updike, and David Foster Wallace. Breaking down the barriers of what is possible in the novel seems to be the exciting challenge. Im very keen on the short story and I think were going to see more and more literary journals or their equivalent on the net it means someone will have to gather up the collected stories of various writers if they dont collect them at stages in their career. Of the very young authors, Im keen to see what Nick McDonell does next, which means waiting for his third novel, An Expensive Education, to appear later this summer. Thank you very much, James. It was a pleasure to hear your thoughts.
Rhodri Mogford is an Oxford graduate in English, with an MA in Film from UCL. He is Welsh, passionate and dedicated to literature, the arts, and all things cultural. He currently works in the editorial department at Continuum Books in London.
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Worlds Biggest Childrens Book Prize Launched: Founding team present at international book fair, BEA in New York, to celebrate inaugural year. A contingent from the Arab Forum for Childrens Book Publishers will attend BEA this week, to promote the brand new Etisalat Prize for Arabic Childrens Literature. In a world where arts and literature funding are the first to be cut due to the economic downturn this prize, backed by the Ruler of Sharjah and sponsored by the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, Etisalat, will be a sign of Sharjahs dedication to promoting literacy and the role that books play at the heart of cultural and social development. In a time of globalisation, digital revolution and the homogenisation of childrens entertainment, the Prize has been designed to preserve Arab childrens culture in the third millennium. With one million dirhams in prize money approximately $275,000 USD - this award is designed to create real investment in the childrens book industry for the region and will be awarded to a winning publishing house rather than an individual. The 2009 winner will be announced at the Sharjah World Book Fair in November later this year. Entries are open to any publisher of Arabic childrens books, and submissions are invited before the deadline of 31st August 2009. This significant initiative is spearheaded by H.E. Sheikha Bodour Al Qassimi, Founder and CEO of Kalimat Publishing whose driving passion is to develop the intellectual, emotional, spiritual and moral needs of children, and who comments, We believe in the rights of children to have their own arts and literature, and we consider it a basic human need for cultural and social development. It is our pleasure to work
Industry News and Opportunities

with Etisalat to bridge the gap between writers and publishers and to create the opportunity for Arabic publishers to compete in the international childrens publishing arena. Literacy initiatives across the Arab states are paying dividends according to the latest UNESCO figures: childrens literacy is now measured at 86.7% across the Arabic speaking world with Sharjah as part of the UAE excelling at 97.7%. Adult literacy is also improving with an evaluation of 72.5% literate adults across the Arab States. These impressive figures are set against modest Arabic originated publishing programmes. The Arab Forum for Childrens Book Publishers Etisalat Award is designed to encourage far greater engagement between Arab publishers, their local literary talent and the Arab readers of tomorrow. The launch of this prize and the associated forum are part of the efforts that aim to fulfil the vision of H.H. Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, who has stressed the importance of developing and introducing Arabic culture and heritage to children through literature. It is the belief of all those involved with this prize that childrens literature is the most significant tool available for preserving national identity, tradition, culture and heritage, and is the ultimate resource to bridge the gap between different cultures and civilizations. In addition to sponsoring the Prize for Arabic Childrens Literature, Etisalat has supported the Arab Forum for Childrens Book Publishers participation at Book Expo America (BEA) 2009. A 225-book
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space pavilion will showcase Arabic childrens literature and the work of five Arab illustrators. A symposium debating the challenges of copyright processes will take place with speakers including H.E. Sheikha Bodour Al Qassimi, Dr. Amira Abu Al Majid and Dr. Najlaa Bashour. At the end of the Expo, all the books exhibited at BEA will be donated by the Forum, via BEA management to one of the Arab communities in the USA. For more information please contact: Margot Weale at Midas Public Relations on margot.weale@midaspr.co.uk, tel + 44 (0)207 361 7881 or Amelia Knight at Midas Public Relations on amelia.knight@midaspr.co.uk (UK) Camille McDuffie at Goldberg McDuffie Communications on +1 212 446 5106 or cmcduffie@goldbergmcduffie.com (US) Tony Mulliken from Midas Public Relations will be at BEA, contactable on: +44 7860 331 528 or tony.mulliken@midaspr.co.uk reprint of an old edition; translations and quoted works will also be excluded. The book must be available in print and published in a hard copy. The book should not conflict with the original values, traditions and customs of the Arab communities. Submissions are restricted to publishers who are members of the Arab Forum for Childrens Book Publishers. Each publisher may nominate up to three books. The award covers children books aimed at children from birth to 14 years old. The deadline for submissions is 31st August 2009. TWO WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER http://www.sall.ex.ac.uk/english/
content/view/2458/555/. The Creative Writing & Arts Programme, University of Exeter, is looking for two freelance Writers-in-Residence to act as providers, ambassadors and mentors for our Creative Writing activities across the region. The assignments will be for two years, 30 days per year, beginning October 1st 2009. Payment is on a daily rate of 200 + 500 annual travel allowance. Writers will be published authors in fiction, poetry, or life writing, with experience of project administration and working with diverse groups. You will be self-managing, under the guidance of a Steering Group, providing quarterly reports on your completed projects and future plans. You will build on existing partnerships as well as developing new ones of your devising. At interview we will be looking to hear from potential candidates as to possible plans for activities. Some days will be dedicated to a Mentoring project for selected applicants of merit. For more information please contact Dr. Andy Brown at Andy.Brown@exeter.ac.uk . To apply, please send your C.V., list of publications and a covering letter to Ms. Nela Kapelan, SALL Research Manager, Room 254, School of Arts, Literatures and Languages, Queens Building, The Queens Drive, Exeter, Devon EX4 4QH or email to n.kapelan@exeter.ac.uk . The closing date for completed applications is Friday 24th July. Interviews will be in early September, to start in October 2009.
All news for this section is compiled by Incwriters. Send your info to: info@incwriters.co.uk Further news can be found in their forum at: www.incwriters.co.uk
Dawning of the Age of...

Summer 2009 has seen thousands of students lives change, another batch released after the end of three years of studying, writing, drinking, filming, painting, shagging, researching, testing. The media and art departments of my Uni have seen more activity in one month than all year, with screenings, exhibitions and performances springing up everywhere. For me, this month has been all the more significant because I turned 21. Its a strange combination of excitement at having full legal adult status, the keys to the front door as it were. Theres a hefty bit of fear thrown in too, Ive finished Uni so what the hell do I do now? The niggling sensation at the back of these emotions is one of complete anti-climax. All thats different is Im now legally allowed to adopt, which I dont have any plans for any time soon, or teach someone to drive, which I never learned myself. I suppose I should get on with writing that script. I read an interview in Screen International last year (June 2008) with Film 4s New Talent Executive Jo McClellan, in which she explains that shes seen a lot of screenplays about teenage lads, young coming of age stories, sometimes a bit gritty. This current trend in genre has obviously filtered through professional writers as well, you can see it in TV series such as Skins or the more recent, aptly named Inbetweeners. Both focus on those teenagers you think of when you hear about GCSE results; generally happy with a bit of social angst, reveling in the headiness of puberty. Although the drugs, homelessness and lesbianism seem a little shoe-horned in to the middle-class setting of Skins, its all a good laugh, a positive, rose-tinted view on the turbulent world of our young adults. And the niggling feeling behind that one, is that the hazy adolescence pictured in these shows is lost, like it was only yesterday that the girls choosing their
Column by Sofie Fowler
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pulling knickers were pulling their mums sleeve for an ice cream. Thats whats worrying, that todays teenagers are forced to deal with very adult things so quickly. By the time they reach their twenties, theyve already come of age. And I dont mean in a how to fill in your tax rebate form way. They know how to find the latest films on the internet, how to get free contraceptive, how to roll a decent spliff and what the most cost effective price to percentage beer is. Noah Clarkes Kidulthood and the sequel Adulthood are a good example of the extreme end of this. The council estate, gangland mentality that shrouds the lead characters transition into maturity is straight from every Mothers Against ... campaigners worst nightmare. Guns, sex, drugs, drink and crime are the catalysts for these kids choices, not whether a university will accept a B in General Studies.
Noahs films stand out from the crowd. He used real kids as actors, incorporated their stories into the script. Shane Meadows did the same with This Is England, Thomas Turgooses lack of any acting training giving a naturalistic feel that pitched us straight back to the 80s. The success of Clarkes Kidulthood gave him a springboard to launch a competition to write the music for Adulthood. Hes giving the kids an example of how to set your life up to be something better. Its a good message, if a little heavy handed. I think the point I was trying to make, before I got distracted by Noah, is that each and every story of teenagers reaching maturity is different, because every teen is different. But the overall residual feeling is that maybe theyre being made to grow up too fast. Maybe pushing them to be like adults is going to make them lose their innocence. I mean, look at Hannah Montana. Shes only just turned 17, shes probably not stopped growing yet, and already shes on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women list, isnt that just a little bit weird?
I mean, look at Hannah Montana. Shes only just turned 17, shes probably not stopped growing yet, and already shes on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women list, isnt that just a little bit weird?
But still, even the hard-working geeks of the teenage population face difficult choices, the decisions they make at sixteen will affect the path their lives ultimately take. Thats not easy when youre still treated like a kid. We expect our teenagers to act like adults before theyre allowed to drive, drink or even vote, is it any wonder some of them end up tagging walls just to fill an evening? Without meaning to sound like Ive got a big girl crush on him, this is where
Sofie Fowler is a Film and TV Screenwriting graduate who is currently working on several projects before commencing a Masters in Journalism. She is a published poet and has written plays for the stage.

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Issue 6 Vol 3 AGE

Michelle Sank - Katya Shipster - Tom Chivers

Interviews Katya Shipster

G.P.Kennedy behind the aging face of publishing reveals something new.

James Methven Articles Skateboarding

Rhodri Mogford goes behind academia.

Tom Chivers shares his secret.

Faith Roswell tackles the biggie. North.

The Internet Indentity Crisis

Columns Notes from America

Dawning of the age of... Writing with Light Michelle Sank

Sofie Fowler tackles the wider world of aging.

Janet Aspey introduces new books from publishers.

News and Opportunities

Editorial by Andrew Oldham

A Writers Secret Passion Skateboarding

Short Article by Tom Chivers

Notes from America: Age

Column by Christine Brandel

himself he does his utmost to facilitate.

Interview by Alexander Laurence

Writing with Light

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 3

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 4

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 5

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 6

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 7

Michelle Sank, Wondrous 8

Article by Faith Roswell

Zeitgeist: Katya Shipster

Interview by G.P. Kennedy

The UK biggest PDF Fiction & Poetry Magazine

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The Classic: James Methven

Short Interview by Rhodri Mogford

Industry News and Opportunities

Dawning of the Age of...

Column by Sofie Fowler

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